washington. barnicle did it. and you can tell. >> he was a good guy. >> and john adams, barnicle wrote a couple columns about him back in the day. >> and his son. i knew his son when his son was in day care. >> john w. adams. yeah. but i think it's his renaissance question. and then i think also he representeds the best of us and the worst of us. and i think people, when we're being honest with ourselves, we all know we have our hypocrisies, and we have our contradictions. and the fact that someone who had such evident contradictions is still worth paying attention to i think resonates. >> and there's some contention over the weekend about how great a man thomas jefferson is. we're going to talk about that a little bit later. >>> but we've got big news this morning. four weeks from today is new year's eve when the fiscal cliff comes. lawmakers now have less than a month to compromise and to avoid a year-end deadline that would trigger massive spending cuts and tax hikes for just about everybody. behind-the-scenes negotiations at a stalemate. both sides went public yesterday on th